5 Ways to be Famous Now

by Maurilia Meehan

  As Fatima stepped forward from behind Jimmy’s bulky figure, waving and smiling, the captain noticed that she had added pink lipstick and eye shadow to her monochrome look. Really, thought Captain Kirstin, if the idea was that men didn’t have lustful thoughts about her, why didn’t she wear a knitted beanie, baggy T-shirt and trackie pants, bogan style? She would be relieved when the fashion for Muslims was over and she could invite that nice black gym teacher back again.

  ‘So, all your sensitivities catered for, just tick the boxes. And remember, while you are on board the Queen Mary, you need never repeat an experience. You’ll have all the delights of the Grand Tour without leaving the ship. Rick’s Bar in Casablanca with Sam at the piano on Mondays, Harry’s Bar in Venice on Tuesdays and Somerset Maugham’s Aggie’s in the South Seas. The Kasbah shopping experience is always open, with all the fun of the Middle East — without those killjoy terrorists.’

  Past the next door of mirrors they emerged into a steamy perspex enclosure with soaring ceilings. An enormous swimming pool with wooden deck was surrounded on all sides by grassy parklands, umbrellas and ice-cream stands.

  ‘As you regard the main swimming pool, you see it is empty, ladies and gentlemen. But listen. Can you not hear the sound of splashing in this apparently deserted pool? Or spot the ghostly trail of wet footprints leading over there to the change room?’

  Expectantly, she paused, awaiting the first scream from the crowd.

  ‘Like those …?’

  Footprints had been left by a well-trained crewman who had taken a dip and then vanished, with perfect timing, as the group was approaching the pool. The captain held them spellbound, telling them to listen for a woman who was crying but who had never been found. For the sounds of heavy breathing. More delighted gasps of horror from the captives. And as Kirstin’s sonorous voice rolled on, even the most sceptical wavered.

  ‘Let me tell you about my own suite. The original mirror from the ghostly Queen Mary hangs there and the strangeness continues. Paranormal activity, no less.’

  She hesitated, tantalising them, and as they leaned towards her she had an image of herself feeding peanuts to apes at the zoo. She lowered her voice.

  ‘I took a photo as an experiment. And it showed a reflection of a tall dark man, dressed in a 1930s suit.’

  ‘Yet no such man was in your room at the time of the photo?’

  She frowned, refusing to be rushed. They were gibbering now, clustering round her, but they were forgetting that they were in her domain. She was the dealer and she would play the ship’s trump cards her own way.

  When silence had fallen once more, she lifted the square chin that Paulie so adored and whispered, ‘Tonight, when we meet again in the Grand Ballroom for the banquet, be alert for visions of the Lady in White. A ghost in an evening gown, she dances alone in the shadows whenever a waltz is played. Which reminds me …’

  She ushered them through a silent sliding wall and into the carpeted luxury of a Victorian music-hall foyer, complete with posters of contortionists and singing sensations. She clapped her hands. From nowhere appeared a dozen tall, silver-haired gentlemen (and several younger ones) dressed in impeccable white tuxedos, all holding red roses. They smiled on cue and blew kisses to the ladies, who outnumbered the gentlemen passengers twenty to one.

  ‘Meet our famously romantic Dance Boys. Tonight, under our glittering chandeliers, a charming partner to fulfil your every desire.’

  Among the Dance Boys, of course, was Mad Victor, eyes vague, recently back from extended compassionate leave. He did not react to this cue to mingle and smile.

  On the Lady Luck, Victor had doubled as leader of the Dance Boys. Dancing had been a welcome break from his more serious duties as the captain’s right-hand man, always ready with tech support. The recent loss of this role as the computer fix-it guy had been a shock at first. But now he could see it was better this way. Something was still not right in his head. Once, he had set the standard in charming affability, but now Victor had not even heard his cue.

  For he was far away, entranced by a pale green ectoplasmic form that seemed to be emanating from the head of one of the passengers. She looked like his late mother, who had become convinced that her body was in the possession of a ghostly etheric form. It was transforming her smooth young hands into leathery old gloves that she did not recognise. She would explain that she was confined to her bed because she had been lost in the bush. Sometimes he believed her. At other times, she would be sharp, over-alert, bewildered and amazed in turn at the loops and detours of time.

  After she died, Mad Victor felt he had caught her unsettling disease. He hadn’t slept well for months because he feared falling into his regular nightmare. A bored nurse kept him prisoner until he agreed to finish an apple that was incised with someone else’s repellent teeth marks. Why should an apple fill him with such dread that he would wake in a sweat? Why would the sight of a half-eaten apple, even on someone else’s plate, fill him with such revulsion? Perhaps his therapist had been wrong. Perhaps he should not have returned to work.

  A sharp elbow in his ribs, a punch in his back and Mad Victor was jostled forward with the other Dance Boys. And then habit took over. Just one of the herd now, he distributed roses among the ladies, adopting the automatically seductive gestures that convinced each of them that she would be a favourite. Unwanted advances from old ladies could be easily halted by assuming gay mannerisms. But once the centre of the ladies’ attention, Victor was now overlooked.

  A friend had told him about this lurk, just when Victor’s back had been giving him trouble. Too much sitting behind the wheel of his taxi. As well as a swift pair of feet, a full head of hair was a requirement, as it was for an American president. Even the older Dance Boys all had silver bodgie cuts. ‘No granny-grabbing until after the cruise, then you can fossil-farm as much as you like. Dope in their bathrooms. Repeat scripts in handbags. Morphine patches if you’re lucky.’

  There had been other bonuses for those loyal to the captain on the Lady Luck, such as skimming ATM cards. Victor had taught the crew how this and other scams worked, and he guessed his replacement would be doing the same on the Queen Mary. The culture of this new ship would be the same. It was only Victor who had changed. He no longer could see the passengers simply as easy marks.

  He had once been proud of his natural supremacy among the Dance Boys, which was based on more than just his looks. As he whirled one adoring partner after another around the floor, he would drop the names of politicians and businessmen currently in the headlines. He had once served as a chauffeur to that prominent tycoon who had been charged with murder. Or to that politician taken to court in a paternity suit. Victor knew all the inside stories, but would fess up only after swearing his dance partner to secrecy. The tabbies loved his gossip, his classic Superman good looks. Their eyes were all on him as he danced for his supper. Afterwards he had joined in the cruel jokes about decrepitude. They had all joked about death. Since 2003, fifty-six Americans (no stats for other nationalities) had been reported as missing after pleasure cruises. Presumed dead. So the captain’s men had to know how to handle a death, given that the average age of the cruisers was sixty-six. All that revelry, not to mention the drunken brawls and gross sex, taxed the old hearts. Date-rape deaths on other ships had been headlines recently, but no death on the captain’s first ship ever made it into the papers, and that was unlikely to change on the Queen Mary.

  Victor now had even humbler duties than dancing. The bars were closed for an hour before dawn for a quick disinfecting hose-down, and Victor and the menials he had once been in charge of would mop and sweep and bundle drunks onto gurneys draped in white sheets, depositing them back in their cabins to sleep it off. And would there be any over-boards? More common since that Titanic movie. A few too many wobbly steps out over the water as they screeched the famous love duet and a whole group could end up doing the dead man’s float.

  ‘And a round of applause for our departing Dan
ce Boys.’

  The manly group vanished in a cloud of dry ice, leaving behind a citrus scent of aftershave. Captain Kirstin could detect a satisfactorily disturbing erotic buzz as she guided her now-frisky charges past the softly lit Deux Magots. Past Harry’s Bar. Through the Acropolis and into the plebeian food hall, with its conflicting aromas of East and West.

  ‘And here I must abandon you to the ghosts of the ship, ladies and gentlemen. Please report any unusual sighting and bon voyage. But wait, there’s more. You will find a tear-off voucher good for one free cocktail. Serving now.’

  There was a predictable stampede, as if she had just announced that all bars were about to close. The apparently parched passengers forgot all about the celebrity chef and about Fatima and about the ship’s ghosts as they bolted off towards their choice of the twenty-three drinking holes.

  All except one woman draped in hippie velvet and wearing Birkenstocks. She was thrusting a flyer in front of the captain, who did not recognise it as ship’s format. Messy typeface, handwritten amendments. What was the woman bleating about? The captain strained to hear her above the din of the crowd. What? Squeeze free yoga into the already packed program, was that it?

  Her dear hubby, the ship’s doctor/parson, was against yoga. That was why there was no shipboard yoga, she began to explain. Age-related deafness no doubt, for the hippie lady continued to wave the amateur flyer at her.

  All that dreadful grey hair piled up as if she was proud of it, a look she and Paulie detested. Why didn’t women just cut their hair off at the first sign of grey, as she had? Particularly convenient for someone like her, who used to really suffer whenever she visited the hairdresser. Hell was having someone intimately touching her hair, standing so close that she could smell boiled eggs for breakfast or pie and sauce for lunch. She now clipped her hair herself. Efficient and hygienic. And Paulie said you could never tell her blunt cut was a wig. But this was no time for aesthetic polemics. The captain just raised her chin and took the easy way out.

  ‘Go ahead, wherever you can find a room, no problem.’

  Knowing that all rooms were permanently booked.

  Keen to wash her hands after dealing with the hordes, Captain Kirstin made her escape through the food hall, which reinforced her low opinion of human nature. The ship catered to all, and here were those who preferred bulk to taste. Wet mouths scoffed the food and tongues and teeth flashed and glistened all around her. That habit of speaking with food in the mouth, once restricted to the French, turned her stomach. She distracted herself by calculating exactly how many starched napkins would be soiled before the end of the cruise.

  Averting her eyes from the passengers who were respectfully stepping out of her way, she headed for the sanctuary of her own quarters. Taking brisker steps now to leave behind the gathered swarm, the voices shouting over music, the clatter of cutlery in the multi-culti cafes and the pokies’ bursts of manic enthusiasm, she focused her mind on Antarctica.

  On the June 21, the Winter Solstice, the ship would berth as far from humanity as it was possible to be on Planet Earth. Somewhere of the captain’s choosing in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. Temperatures would hover around -20, and daylight would be limited to just two magical hours. To celebrate that shortest day, the captain planned a surprise party for her guests. All spirits and cocktails would be free and an endless feast of oysters, scallops, squab and shark would be served.

  Meanwhile, the crew would use a chainsaw to carve a rectangular hole in the nearest flat ice. Just before sunset, all the passengers would gather to witness the highlight of this Antarctic picnic. The captain, aided by a harness, would be lowered into the -16 degree waters for a short swim, before being hauled out and dropped into a steaming mobile hot spa. Meanwhile, she would get acclimatised for this icy plunge by taking a daily dip from her own specially constructed balcony. Its metal grille flooring could be slid back for shark-proof sea bathing. Captain Kirstin believed in the purity of icy oceans, of the untouched Antarctic. Humans were microbes, infecting pristine nature.

  Arriving back in her quarters, she washed her hands and then, craving the solace of machines, she clicked open the control box on the arm of the chair and swung it round to face the CCTVs directly. She stabbed at a sequence of buttons and every screen lit up. Twenty across, twenty down. Using the remote, she flicked through angles, zoomed in on faces, directing her own reality TV show. Her passengers were busy drinking, stuffing themselves with food and shedding skin cells on the Eiffel Tower, the Parthenon, Big Ben and the Tower of London. Only one of them really interested her.

  A series of clicks and she had scrolled back until she saw the dratted girl arriving for the very first time in her cabin, a few hours previously. Nothing extraordinary so far. Putting retro suitcase on the bed. Checking the ingredients of the complimentary toiletries. A slight smile as she spotted the exact brand of tonic she had requested, already by her bed with a crested glass. Apart from setting up some kind of devotional altar by her bed, her behaviour was no different from any passenger with nothing to hide. But the captain knew otherwise. That woman was too obsessed ever to have left it behind.

  Plan A — discovering where she had concealed the object, then recovering it without having to harm her — had just failed. Cursing, the captain scrabbled for the device in her pocket and furiously pressed the red emergency code.

  Plan B had just been triggered. She hoped that her new wonder boy was as good as he claimed to be.

  6

  HUBBY PAULIE

  During the Ghost Tour, Parson Paul had been praying in his cabin. United as deeply as the couple were by their coinciding value systems, he tolerated his wife’s silly atheism, sure he would eventually convert her. But for her to deliberately summon up ghosts was too much. Elbows leaning on his cabin bed, he was on his knees, praying for her, as he did every day.

  But he was also counting his blessings. This modest single cabin was even more suitable for a parson than the twin beds he and Kirstin had at home. When he slept in the same room with her, he was always nervous lest she should sneak into his bed and become demanding, as she did once or twice a year. Perhaps it would not have been so disastrous if she remembered to wear her wig.

  Examining his conscience, he began reviewing the day’s events. He had not, of course, approved of the free cocktail voucher and had told his wife of his feelings. Surely free unfortified drinks were alcohol enough? Speaking as both the ship’s man of the cloth and its sole medical officer. How else had he pleased that ever-watchful Witness? How had he failed? His knees were calloused but the cabin carpet was kind.

  As a boy, he had been made to kneel on the cold concrete floor of a ramshackle mountain house as his father instructed him in The Way of Righteousness. His father had told him that he must strive every day to become one of the Elect, and forbade him to play with those not of The Way.

  Now of course, he knew that his father had been guided by evil spirits. The Elect had already been chosen by the wisdom of God, and no amount of striving on his father’s part would gain him entry to the 144 000 souls to be saved. That sacred number (1 + 4 + 4 = 9), Paul knew, included himself.

  Reviewing his faults, he was pleased to identify one for a change. Over a quiet lunch in Kirstin’s quarters, perusing the latest stock prices before the passengers had boarded, Paulie had failed to reprove his dear wife as severely as he should have about the Ghost Tour. She had arranged it behind his back, knowing that he would not have approved. Sometimes his wife was just a sneaky little girl at heart, so he couldn’t help smiling when she defied him.

  They had met long ago at Miracle Millionaires, which guaranteed participants a full refund if they had not mastered the stock exchange by the end of the residential weekend. Paul and Kirstin had been so wildly inspired that by late Monday morning they had both thrown in their careers. Paul had become a doctor mainly to spite his father, who believed that medical intervention thwarted God’s will. Kirstin MacKinley was a speleologist, palp
ating solid rock rather than flesh, and working as a cave-guide in Tasmania. Intoxicated by their own spontaneity, the young lovers had chucked it all in, married and set up a shell company as informal business partners.

  Ever since, their business strategy had been simple. The parson prayed for guidance while the captain analysed the figures. And their shares went through the roof. Both had spotted the potential of NICE and gradually they had built up their percentage. That was years ago, and now the company was not only the foundation of Paul’s Church of the Prosperous Way but also of Kirstin’s untouched capital, which allowed her such playthings as the Queen Mary. The GFC had only increased their wealth.

  As a sign of her gratitude for Paulie’s profitable prayers and other services — having him on board enabled them to claim a resident medical officer — Kirstin had built the ship’s chapel to his exact specifications, refusing the current fashion for a non-denominational sacred space. Everyone else might be doing it these days, but not Paulie.

  ‘An abomination in the sight of God. Nothing wrong with standing up for The Way, is there?’

  And Kirstin, a manic enforcer on other issues, surrendered to her husband on this issue, just as she went along with most of his other whims. For the parson was her market-tested lucky charm. When he prayed, it always paid.

  Paulie was praying for dear Kirstin’s conversion again. But it was easier to accept her atheism than it would have been to condone a belief in another candidate for possible saviour. There’s always hope with an atheist, who had, as yet, no candidate selected. But idolaters were already backing the losing horse. He clasped his hands more tightly together, blocking out the fear of that hell fire with which his father had terrified him. He reminded himself that he was wiser than his father, whom he knew to be among the damned. After all, he had rejected his son’s vision.